In today’s difficult economic environment it is critical for businesses to show the value of their marketing effort in hopes to avoid drastic budget cuts and staff reductions. Marketers must continue to deliver measurable marketing programs and demonstrate how these programs support the business objectives. It is not enough to simply show the return-on-investment, but also to communicate what marketing programs work and key findings to establish internal best practices or benchmarks. In search engine marketing (SEM), there are a number of methods and approaches to help businesses deliver the value of SEM.

Search Engine Marketing refers to both organic and paid search marketing. Paid Search Marketing (Pay-per-Click) refers to search engine results that are determined by the amount a business pays to appear in sponsorship banners or placement at the top of search engine pages such as Google, MSN, or Yahoo. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of adjusting web content, design structure, indexing, descriptive tags, and page titles to gain higher placement in the search engine results. Search Engine Optimization (organic) is a non paying tactic utilized to attract more visitors to your website. In addition, web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of Internet data for the purposes of understanding and optimizing Web usage.

How can SEM & Web Analytics help your business?

Through SEM & Web Analytics, businesses can control cost, target demographics, testing advertisements, improve web traffic, and unite the results to establish metrics or best practices. For example, a local business could use pay-per-click advertising to target a 15 mile radius, manage the daily expense, and increase traffic to your site by over 30%. Furthermore, the previous implementation of SEO could reduce your business’s overall cost-per-click (CPC). Google Analytics (web analytics application) can gather traffic information, guidance to enhance customer experience, develop custom reports, and implement advanced segmentation to show which ads/segments are responsible for generating sales or specific activities (conversions).

There are several advantages to using SEM with Web Analytics. Most SEM services provide the opportunity to implement A/B or Multivariate testing and the ability to determine which advertisements lead to a purchase. The web analytics application can test the responses to improve purchase or engagement of landing pages used in SEM campaigns.

Why Testing & Measuring Matters?

The ability to test and measure SEM programs can save you time, money, improve efficiency, and productivity. Once there are established results from a campaign, it should be easier to implement improvements and modifications to improve similar campaigns. There is also an opportunity to develop best practice for future campaigns. The result of your organization’s efforts will provide benchmarks for other campaigns and a basis for vendors, partners, or affiliates. The bottom line is saving and a bigger bang for marketing campaigns.

Where to go from here?

It is important that your business evaluates their internal resources especially IT, Web Development, and Marketing teams. Remember that this is an investment and it will not produce instant results. The implementation of SEM and Web Analytics will require communication among all business units. The business must “buy in” or use a SEM vendor but be sure to take into consideration external and internal factors for success.

The first step would be to determine which web analytics application to use. A popular application is Google Analytics and it’s free. There are other web analytics such as Omniture, Coremetrics, Webtrends, and more. Our suggestion would be to do a little research on the best option available based on functionality, cost, feature, and type of industry your business is in. All of these systems have their advantages and disadvantages but it is important to understand how they collect data and whether or not you want to purchase the software versus on-demand services.
The next step would be to determine which SEM services provide to use based on target audience, visibility, and testing options. Our suggestion would be to test the performance of the campaign with two different service providers and eliminate one of the options based on the campaign’s success. Be sure to carefully monitor ad variations, keyword effectiveness, and most importantly “conversions” (purchases or registrations).

Finally, we would recommend that the business develop a process to implement and communicate SEM & Web Analytics services. The communication of SEM and Web Analytics services will be important for all of the key stakeholders to understand these services and their role in supporting the business objectives. The implementation process will help to “flush out” any potential challenges and reduce the cost.

Conclusion

Many organizations have difficulty communicating across business units and effectively implementing changes within their company. Be clear in communicating how SEM & Web Analytics can help the business. Remember that testing and measuring search engine marketing will reduce cost, increase marketing efficiency, and improve productivity among business units. The challenge of embarking on the journey to implement SEM & Web Analytics will be filled with obstacles so be specific in your objectives and show the value of your programs.

Author: Daniel Laws
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Beading Necklace

These days, installing a good website analytics program on your website is simple and costs nothing. Still, there are many small business websites that have not taken advantage of the amazing information they can retrieve through an integrated analytics package.

Here are my top five reasons for installing an analytics package on your business website.

Reason #1: Navigation Path Analysis

While your homepage is probably your most viewed page, realize that people will also land on other pages deeper within your site.

Wouldn’t it be nice to see the navigation path visitors take when they first hit your site? You might assume they are taking one path when, in reality, they are taking a very different one that lowers the chance of conversion.

If you don’t know how people move through your website, it will be very difficult to tune your site to improve visitor experience.

Reason #2: Traffic Referral Monitoring

How do people actually find your business website? How much traffic is Google or Yahoo sending your way? Is your online advertising actually driving traffic back to your site?

An analytics package will tell you which sites people were at before coming to yours. In addition, you’ll learn what people typed into the various search engines to find your web pages. This information is critical to help you discover what is driving traffic so that you can do more of the things that work and less of things that don’t!

Reason #3: Page Content

Did you just write a great new content article for your site? A good analytics package will show you how often pages get viewed relative to others on your site. You’ll also know exactly how long people stayed at a particular page.

This information can help you decide how popular your pages are. If you know which pages your visitors tend to linger on, you can adjust any advertising or monetization strategies for higher profits.

Reason #4: Key Performance Indicators

A good analytics package will allow you to set up and monitor user-defined goals. By defining and monitoring your key performance indicators, you’ll always know how effective your page elements are in enticing and converting your visitors.

The real power comes from combining an analytics package with A/B Split and multivariate testing. By using these two tools together, you will be able to not only monitor your conversions rates, but test the various page elements that lead to higher conversions.

Reason #5: Trend Monitoring

Trend monitoring lets you look at any single performance indicator over time. Seeing how your conversion rates and other indicators change over time will give you a quick indication of the overall health of your business.

Trends that are useful to monitor over time include:

- Average time on site (i.e., visitor engagement)

- Depth of visit (How many total pages are viewed?)

- Unique visitors

- Repeat visitors

- Bounce rate (# people that leave after viewing only 1 page)

While there are many types of analytics packages available, for ease of installation and use, I recommend Google Analytics. The program is free and has several years of real-world testing. In addition, there are a lot of good books available that show how to setup the package on your website.

Installing Google Analytics on your website is simply a matter of pasting a little tracking code on each of your pages and then having Google verify the installation. Once Google picks up on your tracking code, you’ll be presented with an analytics Dashboard upon signing into your account.

There are also many paid-for analytics packages that have their own advantages and drawbacks. Take the time to research the best package for your needs.

You can’t fix what you don’t know is broken. A good analytics package can help identify what needs to be improved. Start monitoring your web visitors today and you’ll be well on your way to improving both your site and your profits.

Author: Corte Swearingen
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Canada duty rates

Analyzing your Website traffic is the key to evaluating your online marketing initiatives. Google Analytics training can show you how to take full advantage of the free – and powerful -analytics tool made by search engine giant, Google.

Why Web Analytics Matter

You cannot know the effectiveness of your marketing if you don’t measure its impact. The ability to obtain detailed statistics easily and quickly is one of the major benefits of Internet marketing.

While there are many tools designed to measure your website visits and provide other relevant statistics, Google Analytics has arguably the most user-friendly interface. The fact that is costs nothing to install is another bonus.

With an analytics tool like the one from Google, you can get immediate access to data about your site’s visitors, and discover where they came from, how they found you and what they did once they entered your site.

You can look at the data in myriad ways and drill down to the finest detail. Consider geography – one of the most basic data sets. Not only can you see where visitors came from by city, you can compare how each city performed in a number of criteria, including average time on site, percentage of new visits, and bounce rate. From these simple graphs alone you can: see which regions are drawing the most traffic; decide which areas need to be targeted more intensively; and determine whether efforts to focus on a particular region were successful.

Why You Need Google Analytics Training

The Google Analytics interface is easy to use, of that there is no doubt. But the sheer depth of numbers available can overwhelm even the most knowledgeable user. Equally daunting is the setting of conversion goals and analyzing the many statistics that accompany these goals.

In addition to deciphering standard statistics, there are always new features being added to Google Analytics. Finding the time to figure these out is next to impossible for most business owners.

New features available right now include the Beta version of Custom Reporting and Advanced Segments. The latter enables you to use Boolean logic to compare site metrics of your own choosing.

Google Analytics training can keep you up to speed on all of the changes and show you how to use the many standard features, like customizing the dashboard and exporting data.

Google AdWords and Analytics Together

If you are a user of Google AdWords, then there is another great advantage to using Analytics – Adwords integration. Your training in Google Analytics will show you how to use the application to quickly and easily gauge which of your Google AdWords are most profitable.

Make the Most of This Free Analytics Tool

Google Analytics is a comprehensive website analysis tool. The fact that it costs nothing makes it even better. But even at that price, if you don’t know how to use it effectively, it will have little or no value. Google Analytics training is a wise investment that will help you strengthen your ability to analyze your site’s performance and improve your online marketing.

Author: Diane G Salema
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: US Dollar credit card

How many businesses use an analytics consultant to help them gauge the effectiveness of their online marketing? Surprisingly few.

According to a recent survey by UK firm Alterian, less than half (47%) of businesses that market online use analytics to measure their success. This low number proves just how challenging it has been for businesses to get a clear picture of the ROI for their online marketing campaigns. One expert likens this to “marketing in the dark.”

Analytics Consultants Make Sense of it All

When you consider the sheer volume of data in your average Web analytics report, it is not really all that surprising that businesses tend to overlook these statistics.

Website analytics are confusing for the average business owner – no doubt about it. Absolute unique visitors, bounce rates, landing pages, exit pages – collating all of these numbers into something meaningful is really beyond the capabilities of most people, save for the analytics consultants who not only understand the numbers, but can act on what these numbers are telling them.

With your data in hand, a consultant can tell you – in plain language – how your SEO and PPC campaigns are doing, where the weaknesses are, and how to improve on your results. They can analyze your campaign against your marketing goals to give you a clear picture of your ROI. Then they can take all of this information and build a strategy to help you reach new markets, expand your business and plan for future growth.

How Web Analytics Work

To track data on the visitors to your site, you need a specialized analytics tool. There are a variety of tools available, but Google Analytics is considered the industry leader.

Analytics consultants use software like Google Analytics to evaluate the effectiveness of your Website as a marketing tool. It offers consultants a clear picture of everything about your site visitors: where in the world they came from, how they found you, where they went on your site, and how long they stayed.

The data provided by analytics software enables your consultant to carry out detailed keyword research. They can tell you the success rate of the popular keywords you may be using to attract your target audience. More importantly, this analysis can introduce you to more specific and obscure keywords – the kind that can open new doors for your business and offer ways to attract a whole new audience.

Website analytics can also give you valuable information about the revenue you’ve earned and the conversion rate you’ve achieved. As you well know, attracting visitors is one thing, converting them into paying customers is quite another. Tracking your visitor data is the first step in improving your conversion rate.

Speak with an Analytics Consultant to Improve Your Online Marketing

In good and bad economic times, you need to know that you are realizing maximum ROI with your online marketing efforts. If you’ve been marketing in the dark, it’s time to contact an analytics consultant and shine a light on your Web statistics.

Author: Diane G Salema
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Credit card currency-exchange fees